1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to management of fonts used for presentation of information to computer users and more specifically relates to management of typefaces containing multiple subsets of code points such as Unicode fonts containing multiple language subsets within the typeface.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Printing systems and other presentation devices such as user displays present both text and image information to users. When presenting text information, the text is typically represented or depicted by glyphs or images (e.g., graphical symbols or icons) representing individual characters (code points) within a collection of related glyphs referred to as the font typeface.
Often users utilize a font management program to manage large collections of fonts such as may be used in a production printing environment. A font management program may be used to modify or customize particular glyphs, characters, or code points within the font typeface. For example, customized glyphs may be defined for a particular printing or display application or enterprise (e.g., a corporate logo or other standardized corporate symbols and glyphs). Or, for example, standard glyphs for particular code points may be customized for a particular printing or display application. Exemplary of a well known, typical font management program is the FontLab Studio program. Another well known exemplary program is the Font Installer for AFP (Advanced Function Presentation) Systems from IBM. Other well-known, commercially available font management programs may be utilized for essentially similar purposes.
Presently known font management applications are generally operable to present to a user all glyphs (or other code point information) of a particular typeface for review by a user (e.g., presenting on the user's display screen and/or printing all of the glyphs of a selected font typeface). Where the font typeface contains a relatively small number of code points, presentation to the user of the entire collection of glyphs or other code point information of the font typeface is acceptable. However, where a font typeface contains a large number of code points such as the multiple languages encoded within a single Unicode font typeface, presentation to the user of all the glyphs or other code point information of the large font typeface may be impractical or unusable due to the volume of information (glyphs or other code point information) presented. The user may be required to scroll through hundreds or even thousands of display screens or pages of printed output to review particular glyphs or other information for particular code points of interest. For example, as noted, a typical Unicode font typeface may include many languages all encoded within a single Unicode font typeface. A typical font management programs such as FontLab Studio provides only the ability to print all of the glyphs of the code points of the Unicode font typeface thus forcing the user to review hundreds if not thousands of glyph images that may be irrelevant to a particular application of the Unicode font typeface.
It is evident from the above discussion that a need exists for improved font management methods and structures to permit presentation of manageable subsets of a large font typeface in a font management application program.